


the day will come, can't cover up what you've done

by RyanNew



Series: five times [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Hospitals, Insomnia, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Overdosing, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:32:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanNew/pseuds/RyanNew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tyler isn't mentally ill. but that doesn't mean he isn't broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the day will come, can't cover up what you've done

**Author's Note:**

> i thought of this at four a.m. it's not great but i hope it's alright? again, if i make any mistakes with how i explain ocd then let me know, i don't have it and so can't always be accurate. i tried my best.
> 
> trigger warnings: self harm, accidental overdose, accidental suicide attempt
> 
> title from missing you by all time low

tyler wasn't mentally ill. but that didn't mean he wasn't broken.

most days, he would be okay. he wouldn't repeat anything and he'd take his medication and he'd be able to live with things that didn't fit the patterns in his head. jenna loved those days with all her heart. she doesn't want him to be "normal". she doesn't want him to only say he loved her once at the end of every phone call, she didn't want him to only wash his hair when it needed it, she didn't want him to have his loose change to jangle randomly in his pocket, she didn't want him to stop timing their kisses so that they were five, ten, fifteen seconds long, she didn't want him to live in a house where there was only one lock on the door rather than five, she didn't want him to dance without that little twitching thing he does (which she finds insanely cute), she didn't want him to tell her the time even if it was a time he hated like twenty, forty, fifty or fifty-five minutes past the hour. and she certainly didn't want him to go on tour and only call her on days where something had happened that might interest her. she wouldn't say she loved having a husband with obsessive compulsive disorder, but she loved having tyler. and if the two came hand in hand, she could deal with it. 

as long as he was okay, she was.

but some days, tyler would be a mess. he would repeat things so often that she couldn't stop him after five, ten or fifteen times. he would be panicking so much that he would say something like "i finished the cereal" thirty-five times. he would refuse to take his medication because even when he little square tablet had been neatly cut into five pieces he would swear blind that one was bigger than the rest and he simply couldn't take it. some days he would refuse to leave the house because there were three steps leading up to their front door and whose idea was that because three steps looks really messy and ugly and why would anyone even do that and more importantly why did they move in here when it had three when they bught it so it wasnt exactly a surprise and they should have known it would cause problems later. in short, tyler couldn't function.

jenna didn't like leaving him on days like that. she wasn't his carer, and he could easily look after himself, but still.

tyler had been having a good few day because his prescription was changed, and now he was on five pills a day he didn't need to cut them up. he was taking his pills as he should and things didn't make him as anxious. obviously, he still had his compulsions, but they weren't preventing him from coping. he was okay.

"it's honestly fine, ty, i can stay here."  
"no, it's not fine. i'm okay, go spend some time with emma."  
"ty, you only got back from touring a few days ago, you were in the uk for like a month. i want to spend time with you."  
"you've not seen emma in almost a year, relax. she's in town for today only, i'm here all the time. go."  
"... i love you. call me if you need me."  
"will do. i'm doing okay today, i swear."

and he was. he was able to write a whole new song, even though he didn't really need to do so a month before the release of the new album. but he put it together, and he was proud. it was kind of different to what he usually created- it was loosely based around his ocd, but not in such a way that anyone would understand that he had it. except, he hoped, people who could relate themselves. the song involved a lot of repetition of certain phrases, and the sound was very structured and neat. it sounded like his thoughts, and he was proud of it. obviously, it wasn't perfect yet. it would be a long time before he felt confident enough to unleash it on the world.

it had only been two hours since jenna left, and she wasn't due back for another two, but he could already feel loneliness and boredom beginning to creep up on him. he decided to watch a film, one that he'd begun watching with jenna the night he'd returned from tour. he fell asleep about half an hour in, and he was determined to watch the whole thing, because jenna loved it.

he got about an hour in when the phone rang. he jumped up excitedly, hoping it would be jenna (he missed her a stupid amount for the short time she'd been gone) but he was slightly disappointed when 'unknown number' flashed up on caller id.

"hello?"  
"is jen there?" tyler didn't recognize the deep male voice, and that scared him.  
"um, no? this is tyler."  
"who?"  
"her husband."  
"oh." the voice sounded confused, and even slightly disgusted (although that may have paranoia on tyler's side)  
"well. tell her adam called, anyway." 

adam. tyler felt his chest tighten. _adam._ who was adam? jenna wouldn't be cheating on him, would she?

no. jenna loved him, she only married him a few weeks ago. she wouldn't have married him if she was cheating. but how could he blame her? he was obviously a handful. he would understand if she wanted somebody normal. it made him feel sick though, that somebody out there might be saying 'i love you' to jenna and only saying it once, not caring if it was _right_ , just caring that they'd said it meaninglessly. somebody out there might be kissing her goodbye and only doing it once. somebody out there might be lying next to her at the end of the night with their hair unwashed because it didn't feel greasy yet. the thought made him shudder, for more reasons than just wrong. those actions, to him, seemed so wrong. but to somebody like jenna, somebody normal, that was just life. that was convenient. tyler didn't like convenient. tyler liked right.

he was so wrapped up in things being right that he barely knew what was happening. he just knew that it was wrong because he was looking at five red lines and he liked fives but they were all in a small space and so it was only one set of five and he needed five sets of five so that it all evened out and before long there were five sets of five red lines up his left wrist but that is still wrong because it doesn't match his right so obviously he has to line them up so there are five sets of five on his right wrist and he wasn't sure how but suddenly he had fifty cuts on his arms. all he could feel was the stabbing pain in his arms and it was grounding him, and being grounded wasn't what he wanted because being grounded meant thinking of adam, whoever he was, and tyler didn't want to think about adam, he wanted to be asleep.

as if on autopilot, he stumbled over to the medicine cabinet, which was full of his various medications, arranged in sets of five by size because that was how he liked it, but the order didn't seem to matter when he just grabbed the nearest thing he could and swallowed five of them. they were sleeping pills, and tyler finally realised what was happening, because he had been watching everything unfold from a cage in the corner of the room and he knew what he was doing, but didn't realise that he was doing it to himself until that very moment. the cuts on his arm were cuts on _his_ arm and that was two years clean gone in an instant and he hadn't even known it.

he fumbled with his phone, blood that belonged to him (oh god it belonged to him this isn't what he wanted) dripping onto the screen as he tried desperately to call jenna's cell.  
"tyler?"  
"jenna. jenna. jenna, jenna, jenna-"  
"ty..."  
"jenna i've done something bad, it was an accident. it was an accident. it was an accident. it was an accident. it was an accident-"  
"five times, tyler." there was so much fear in her voice that tyler began to cry even harder, "ty what's happening?"  
he could barely speak between rapid breaths but choked out "come home, i love you, i'm sorry, i love you, come home, jenna please just come home now."

and it was almost impossible to make out, but she knew and she ran. she ran as fast as she could because there was no point calling a cab now she was so close to home and _oh god she never should have left him_. her heartbeat was going faster than it had in forever and she was at the house running up those three stupid steps that ty hated so much and she wouldn't admit it but she was begging inside her head that he would be okay enough to complain about those steps again soon.

and then she was in the bathroom and how was the carpet so red it's a white carpet. it was so red everywhere and this was meant to be a white carpet, white. ghostly white, just like the man she loved, whose blood made terrifying contrast with the sickly paleness of his usually tanned skin and oh god he was too pale.

she vaguely remembered calling an ambulance and begging to know if he'd taken anything but mostly she remembered the fear burning in her stomach because the last time this happened she almost lost him and she couldn't lose him, not now. she shouldn't have left him but she's not his carer and she shouldn't have to give up her life for him and she knows he agrees but she doesn't want to give up him. she won't give up on him if he doesn't give up on her.

it's four days later and jenna has barely slept. she's been sat by the hospital bed of a man who promised he'd never do this again. he hasn't woken, but at least he's alive. she's only had around three hours sleep in the last forty-eight hours and she knows tyler wouldn't want her to do this so she curls up in the chair beside his bed, letting the steady beeping of tyler's life lull her to sleep.

it felt like drowning. it felt like he was underwater and everything was muffled and he was being held down by nothing and couldn't reach the top. he just wanted to breathe again. and slowly the water was muffling his hearing less and less and less and there was a beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and tyler liked it because it clearly fit a pattern. and then he realised what it was and beep, beep, beep, became beepbeepbeep because he was in a hospital and it all came flooding back and he had broken his two years clean and jenna would be so disappointed and he couldn't handle this and he couldn't breathe again he didn't want this.

time stood still as she wrapped her arms around him. she held him and she was running her hands through his short hair and _has his hair been washed in the last however long_ and nothing is important because he ca feel her and she's here and she stayed and she isn't angry she just cares. she's holding him and he feels safe and it doesn't bother him that there are three different colours of ceiling tile because jenna is here and she's holding him and god he missed her.

"four days tyler..." she whispered and he could hear it even though she was quiet and talking through tears.  
"i'm sorry." he whispered back, and wound his arms round her, pulling her even closer. that sorry wasn't right, it felt wrong, and disgusting, and he _needed_ to try again but he couldn't, because he needed jenna more.  
"i haven't been that scared in years, ty."  
"...neither have i."

and then things were silent again and tyler started to notice tiny things like how she had four hair grips pinning her fringe back (she usually had five to keep him happy) and that she had dried blood under her nails and she was wearing the same black shirt she'd been wearing out to meet emma and oh wow she hadn't changed since that day and she'd been here the whole time. and it was just like twenty-thirteen because she'd sat beside his bedside for seven whole days in the same clothes she'd found him in and everybody else had come and gone but she'd barely let go of his hand.

and then he was sure. jenna loves him, and she will never, ever cheat.

"who's adam?"  
"tyler, is that what caused this?"  
"who is he?"  
"it' not what you think, ty-"  
"i know. so what is it? you love me, i know you do, please don't keep me in the dark, please, just please."  
"he's teaching me art. i wanted to learn to draw."  
"oh."  
"tyler, i'd never try and hurt you. i wanted it to be a surprise, that's the only reason i didn't tell you."  
"i know you wouldn't cheat on me."  
"of course not. muscly, charming guys with perfect teeth and perfect tans and perfect blonde hair? totally not my type."

tyler got better, like he always did. and jenna was there the whole time, like she always is.

tyler isn't mentally ill. but that doesn't mean he's not broken.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know whether or not i like this. again, it's thirteen minutes past one in the morning and i'm tired. that's why it gets worse towards the end.
> 
> was this okay? i cried a one point when i was writing it but honestly that's probably just me being too emotional.
> 
> bleh, i don't know if i like this one. like, at all.


End file.
